virtualDavis

Like many writers and readers I’ve been chewing on Neil Genzlinger’s “Problem With Memoirs” and swinging back and forth between reproach and praise. It’s a provocative piece that continues to provoke dramatic responses.

There was a time when you had to earn the right to draft a memoir, by accomplishing something noteworthy or having an extremely unusual experience or being such a brilliant writer that you could turn relatively ordinary occur­rences into a snapshot of a broader historical moment. (NYTimes.com)

My reactions are complicated by the fact that Rosslyn Redux, my current work-in-progress, is a memoir. Besides, I agree with Genzlinger that an awful lot the whiny, angry drivel masquerading as memoir should still be standing vertical in forests.

Over the last few months that I’ve been chasing publishing answers and advice I’ve often heard that the best selling memoirs are born of strong platforms, not strong writing or stories. Celebrity memoirs are the obvious example. Publishers apparently love them because they sell, sell, sell. Makes sense. But doesn’t exactly fuel the sort of mighty memoir creation that Genzlinger craves. He acknowledges that there’s plenty of quality memoir being produced, but it’s swamped by forgettable, regrettable spamoir!

Sure, the resulting list has authors who would be memoir-eligible under the old rules. But they are lost in a sea of people you’ve never heard of, writing uninterestingly about the unexceptional, apparently not realizing how commonplace their little wrinkle is or how many other people have already written about it. (NYTimes.com)

That he lumps unheard-of memoirists with porridge producers continues to bug me. He seems to suggest, albeit obliquely, that memoir writing should be limited to writer’s sitting atop successful publishing careers. Or celebrities? Maybe this is like the agents and publishers and editors drumming the “Platform, Platform, Platform” chant. Or maybe he genuinely believes that  memoirs will be better if written by widely known/read authors. In any case, I don’t understand. And — as a newbie — I’m annoyed to be categorically dismissed. Porridge producers, be damned. But I’m confident that newbies can dish up delicacies too.

Am I being thin skinned? Sure. And this is the complexity of Genzlinger’s piece. I credit that he’s intentionally pushing buttons, intentionally chastising and provocative. And the brunt of his thinking is spot on. He closes with advice:

If you didn’t feel you were discovering something as you wrote your memoir, don’t publish it. Instead hit the delete key… (NYTimes.com)

Sure, he’s posturing and fanning the flames, but he’s right. But who decides? Writing and storytelling and memoir are subjective. And the marketplace often veers wildly from the literary merits of work published. Obviously the authors have a tough time typing “The End” and then condemning the preceding 180k words to the dustbin. And publishers are altogether too happy to pass the porridge along to starving readers with deep pockets. So who decides? Perhaps his point lies elsewhere; perhaps he’s simply trying to redefine what makes a good memoir.

That’s what makes a good memoir — it’s not a regurgitation of ordinariness or ordeal, not a dart thrown desperately at a trendy topic, but a shared discovery.(NYTimes.com)

This sings, soars, then arcs toward the target. Bulls eye! Bravo, Gun-slinger. This is what he’s after, the recipe for a meaningful memoir. And I want to stand and pump my fists in the air as I cheer and bellow, “Hurrah!”Memoir is discovery.

I differ with Penny Jar who’s response to “the great wack-a-doo in the memoir world” unleashed by Genzlinger’s piece concludes that a manifesto to brilliance is at work.

I don’t see the article as being the snobby, dodgy, shut-your-pie-hole critique it may have been served up as. I think it’s a call to brilliance. (Penny Jar)

Brilliance and excellence, yes, but this is always the case in great writing. What sets memoir apart? Discovery. I’m reading Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Storywhich breaks down this discovery even further into the narrator’s discovery of self through a larger, more plot-driven discovery. (I’ll tackle this idea again soon in another post.)

Absent the discovery, memoir is a pointless chronicle, a panful traipse through the wasteland of experience. So what? Who cares? If the reader is to become invested in the story, the author must share their discovery openly, honestly, artistically.

In “Writing Memoir: Art vs. Confessional” Susan Cushman develops this last idea further by referencing a comment made by Scott Morris (Waiting for April and The Total View of Taftly) a couple of years ago during a manuscript critique workshop she attended in Oxford, Mississippi:

A memoir must be artful and not just real. Yes, you’ve lived it—the abuse, the loss, the suffering—now you have to get up and above it, distance yourself, and spin a good yarn. You’ve got to create art from what you lived. (There Are No Rules)

So, where does this leave us? I’m still swimming upstream, trying to distill 400k of regurgitation into a tidy story. I’m enjoying the journey, but the discovery is still unraveling. As for art, though I’m courting her night and day, she’s an elusive soul. Not giving up yet…

Are some memoirs better as fiction?

Though I’ve never met William Zinsser (Writing About Your Life, On Writing Well), he’s been one of my mentors over the last year. In addition to sharing a Deerfield Academy history, his writing and teaching have propelled me toward a simpler and deeper understanding of the memoir I am writing. If it didn’t sound absurd, I might even suggest that Zinsser advice has served as Rosslyn Redux‘s midwife!

In a recent blog post, “How to Write a Memoir” tackles my current mega-challenge, organizing and reducing my memoir.

Most people embarking on a memoir are paralyzed by the size of the task. What to put in? What to leave out? Where to start? Where to stop? How to shape the story? The past looms over them in a thousand fragments, defying them to impose on it some kind of order. Because of that anxiety, many memoirs linger for years half written, or never get written at all. (The American Scholar)

According to Zinsser, writing a memoir necessitates a “series of reducing decisions“, starting with pruning out all non-essential characters. If they don’t absolutely need to be in the memoir, remove them.

You must find a narrative trajectory for the story you want to tell and never relinquish control. This means leaving out of your memoir many people who don’t need to be there. (The American Scholar)

More easily said than done! One of the most transformative aspects of the almost four years which my wife and I spent consumed with renovating our new home in the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley was the proliferation of stories. So many lives have touched (or been touched) by this historic property. Rather than a home, we inherited a museum-full of lives, histories, artifacts, stories. It was a humbling and fascinating experience. And I wish to preserve as many of these stories as possible.

Early on I saw the memoir as a literary museum à la Plutarch’s Lives: Rosslyn’s Lives. Less ambitious in some respects, but more so in others. I’ve struggled with letting go of many of these stories, not for good, but from the memoir. Out of the memoir and onto the Rosslyn Redux website where I’ll aggregate and curate as many stories as I can before they disappear.

Don’t rummage around in your past—or your family’s past—to find episodes that you think are “important”…. Look for small self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you still remember them it’s because they contain a universal truth that your readers will recognize from their own life. (The American Scholar)

This is helpful, almost a permission to focus and reduce. And yet it is far more easily prescribed than administered! Even on the simplest level, my wife frequently grows frustrated with my omissions. I remind her that my story is different from hers. What may continue to anger her about an error we made or a contractor who disappointed may have become humorous for me. Perhaps she’ll find time to record her own memoir?

Most people are not proficient at the art of listening. It requires practice and dedication.

David Weedmark, author of The Tanglewood Murders recently opined on the global listening deficit. And like so much that germinates from his clever mind, his observation that the population at large isn’t very skilled at listening and his “5 Keys to the Art of Listening” are worth reading, re-reading and then passing along to the folks you’d like to listen.

It reminded me of something I used to tell my students. The first step in storytelling is listening. And the second and the third.

To tell stories, you must listen to the world around you. Not just the stories written, told, illustrated by others. There’s a deeper listening that precedes good storytelling, an intentional receptivity to the world around us.

That cracked manhole cover has a story. That twisted walnut tree has a story. That distant dog bark carried on the wind, and the smell of burning leaves, and the scar across you left pinky knuckle. All have stories.

Can you hear them? If you listen, really listen, you’ll begin to hear the stories underneath. And then you can begin to pick and choose the ones you like, the ones you understand, the ones your audience most desire and need.

Weedmark’s guidelines are helpful:

1. Listen actively. Look in the person’s eyes, watch their mouth. Lean forward.
2. Don’t think about talking. Think about what the other person is saying.
3. Ask questions. When the other person has finished… [speaking] ask a question…
4. Don’t fake it. [Your] time is just too valuable.
5. Ask better questions. Take them deeper into their own thoughts and feelings by asking them why they did what they did and how they got to where they are.

(via David Weedmark)

Related articles

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If somebody sets out in great detail what is before us, we very quickly become bored. That is not the way we see the world; we look for salience, we look for the feature that will engage our interest… The trouble with overwritten prose is that it takes away from the reader the opportunity to imagine a scene. We do not want to be told everything; we want a few brushstrokes, a few carefully chosen adjectives, and then we can do the rest ourselves. (Wall Street Journal)

Crisp, concise language sounds like a worthy goal. And indeed it is. But words are so delicious, so tempting, so distracting. It’s often quite difficult to cull the best and lose the rest. Especially because we writers like words, collect words, romance words, get totally distracted words… See where I’m going? It can be damned difficult to weed out all the superfluous language. Even when we know it’s the right way to write!

Alexander McCall Smith’s article, “Block that Adjective“, hits the nail on the head:

“For some people, being able to use all these words is rather like being faced with a chocolate box with multiple layers; the temptation to overindulge is just too great.”

Yup. I’m one of those chocolate lovers. Hello, I’m George Davis, and I’m a word glutton. Recognizing I have a problem is half the battle right? Nope. Not even close. It’s a fresh battle each time I sit down to edit what I’ve written. Clean out the clutter. Clean out the distractions. Clean out the overindulgence. What’s left? The essence. The story…

Ira Glass on How to Build a Great Story

If Bob Dylan and Willy Nelson are two of the most unique voices in music, Ira Glass has to be one of the most unique voices in storytelling. Don’t you think? His slightly nasal voice, awkward cadence and captivating delivery absolutely suck me in.

And Ira Glass isn’t just a master storyteller; he’s a master story crafter. In this series of four YouTube videos Glass explores the building blocks of a great story. Take a few minutes. You’ll learn something. And you’ll enjoy it!

• Ira Glass on Storytelling #1
• Ira Glass on Storytelling #2
• Ira Glass on Storytelling #3
• Ira Glass on Storytelling #4

His humility is encouraging, especially when he samples the reporting he was producing after a half dozen years in the business. By his own admission, there was still so much improvement needed, so much learning. All storytellers know this, but it’s helpful to be reminded by a storyteller with a weekly audience of 1.7 million (according the the statistic he offers in the video) to remind us that their is always plenty of improvement to strive for. Even after years of practice!

Kurt Vonnegut on short story writing (video via youtube.com)

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could shoot Ernest Hemingway a quick email to ask for a few tips? Or Jack London? Stephen King? Well, Kurt Vonnegut’s not such a bad fall back, so listen. Then re-listen. Then get to work!

Q: There’s so much for a writer to think about: platform, query letters, agents, marketing. What’s the most important thing to focus on?

A: That’s easy. Focus on the content of your book. There’s nothing more important. (The Book Deal)

So content is [still] king! Back to work…

I enjoyed Eric’s lighthanded but thoughtful reflection on the merits of working with a literary agent in the digital age.

The times, they are a-changin’, mes auteurs. The digital age means more books are available in more ways than ever before, which in turn means two things: first, you have that much more competition for eyeballs, and second, you need some way to differentiate yourself from the crowd such that all those eyeballs are reading your book.

 

In short: regardless of whether [or not] you’re going (exclusively) digital, you want an agent… an agent’s multiple talents, myriad connections, and considerable experience will all be great assets to you in your quest for publication. This is true for more than a few reasons…

• If you’re dealing with an editor, an agent is worth his or her weight in gold in terms of contract negotiation (not to mention that going with an agent in the first place generally makes it much easier to get an editor’s attention). This is doubly true as the details of e-rights are being hammered out.
• An agent will secure you a publishing house by way of said editor, meaning he or she is basically getting you editorial input, a marketing team, a publicist, a sales team, and an art department capable of making you a Truly Fancy Cover. Unless you’re the aforementioned Jack/Jane of all trades, this is a huge bonus for you. (You also won’t have to worry about getting your e-book fed out to Amazon, Apple, and the like.)
• You’ve got a buffer between you and your editor/publisher. This means that you can spend your valuable time writing while your agent spends his or her time talking to the editor/publisher (pitching your next project, hounding them for royalty statements, finding out why the awesome cover they helped you negotiate isn’t showing up on Barnes & Noble’s website, &c).
• You have a Fancy Website with lots of loyal visitors. Your agent has a Fancy Website with lots of loyal visitors. If you both add links to your book to your websites/blogs, you get that many more eyeballs reading about (and hopefully soon reading) your book. Agents go to bat for their clients in more ways than one.
• Finally, you get a measure of that e’er elusive brand recognition that separates your book from Joe “DIY” Lunchbucket. If you self-publish on-line, the only one vouching for your work is you. If you have an agent and an editor, you’ve got at least two organizations behind you vouching for your talent and credibility as a writer. (Pimp my Novel)

Did I like the book?

Full stop! Do you ever find yourself asking this question after finishing a new book?

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not sure I’d go so far as Nathan Bransford because it’s natural, almost instinctual to size up a read according to your own personal like/dislike criteria. But don’t stop there. My sub-four year old nieces are accomplished like/dislike experts. So is my Labrador Retriever, Griffin. It’s pretty well ingrained in the DNA of humans and those critters who mingle amongst us. But it’s not the most valuable assesment tool. Probe deeper, Bransford reminds us. Especially if you’re an aspiring writer — essaying to leap from unpublished, unread obscurity to scribbling fandom — you must learn to asses books, especially widely purchased and read books with more useful metric.

“X sucks.” … [If] this is all an aspiring writer is taking from a book, they missed the main point of reading it. All they figured out is whether they liked the book or not… the one question that aspiring writers should never ask themselves when reading a book is, “Do I like this?” … Who is that question about? Well, it’s about you. It’s about your taste, and whether the book fit in with your likes and dislikes. It’s not about the book. It’s about you and whether the book spoke to you… but plumbing the depths of our likes and dislikes is about entertainment, it’s not knowledge that is overly helpful as a writer. Knowing your likes and dislikes will help you imitate, but it won’t help you learn tools you can really use.

The real question aspiring writers should ask is not whether they liked a book, but whether they think the author accomplished what they set out to accomplish. How good is the book at what it is trying to do? … Once you start looking at an author’s intent, you’ll start to see where they succeeded and didn’t succeed at what they were trying to accomplish. And you’ll also start seeing that what most megabestsellers have in common is that the authors were phenomenal at delivering the thing(s) they set out to accomplish and at giving readers the experiences they wanted to give them. You’ll start absorbing the positive attributes of books you might not even like all that much.

Asking this question and really thinking about it is the place where nuanced reading starts, and where writers will start noticing craft, technique, and things they can actually use when they write. (Nathan Bransfor’s Blog)

• It’s a Great Time to Be an Author
• Inverted Publishing Funnel
• The Myth of “Just An Author”

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Lately the blogosphere is busy dissecting the merits and demerits of self-publishing. Though diverse concerns and hopes abound, the economics of self-publishing is a popular point of debate. Can authors earn a living by self-publishing?

Frankly, it’s still too early in this revolution to answer the question definitively. But as the economics of the publishing industry begin to shift rapidly and radically as they’ve already done in the music business, writers, agents and publishers need to study the financial viability of their occupations. On Thursday author Joe Konrath posted, “How to Make Money on eBooks” offering advice to writers in our post-Gutenberg era. His seven recommendations and Q&A are not groundbreaking news perhaps, but they are straightforward, important and timely for authors (and agents and publishers!)

1. Write a damn good book.
2. Price it right.
3. Format it correctly.
4. Design a professional book cover.
5. Write a great product description.
6. Choose your platform.
7. Publicize your ebook.

I’m going with numbers one and seven as the most obvious but most important reminders. And I’m learning that platform, platform, platform (above and beyond deciding on whether you want to publish your digital book with Kindle or iBookstore…) is rapidly becoming the Holy Grail of the publishing world. So number eight, or maybe seven point five, should be build, improve, expand, support, and LOVE your platform.

Konrath’s Q&A section covers critical territory about agents and the pros and cons of traditional versus self publishing, and he circles around to the question on everyone’s mind: Can authors earn a living by self-publishing?

“I don’t know many people who make a living being traditionally published. Most of my peers have day jobs.That said, I’m making a living self publishing. I’m sure others can and will. But whether you can or not involves a lot of factors, some within your control, some not. But, in my humble opinion, a dedicated writer who turns out good material on a consistent basis will be able to, on average, earn more money self publishing than traditional publishing. I say this having done both.”

This might be the most hopeful publishing industry perspective in months!Read the full post here…

Related:

• Self-publish with Borders and Barnes & Noble
• Ryu Murakami Bypasses Publishers, Opts for iPad
• Self-publish with Apple’s iBookstore
• Publish and Distribute with CreateSpace
• Inverted Publishing Funnel
• Save Yourself, Save The Industry